


Child Killer

by Yalu



Series: Immortal Men [1]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: (except that Ianto lives), AU, Angst, Character Death Fix, Children of Earth Fix-It, Dark, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fix-It, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Character Death, WARNING: sort of underage (see notes), no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-20
Updated: 2017-07-23
Packaged: 2018-12-04 14:00:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11556666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yalu/pseuds/Yalu
Summary: In 1965, Jack was out of the country. When the 456 return, Torchwood is there to do their job, but survival isn't easy: Someone still has to die.Fix-it for Children of Earth.





	1. Day One, Day Two, Day Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: There's a little bit of an underage relationship in here. It's so tame that it would be more misleading to use the archive warning tag, but if it's your squick, be aware.
> 
> Other warning: Not a happy story. Happy moments, but angsty. This is the story I had to write to justify all the schmoopy Jack/Ianto nobody dies fluff I've got half written already. Still an improvement on CoE.
> 
> The science of this really fails. It physically hurt to try to put together some kind of logical-sounding explanation that matched what was on screen. Hurt. Bad. Ow. Nothing in here makes the least bit of sense, the medical stuff least of all (not a doctor!), but if I technobabbled right it'll sound like it does. Pretend, please?

 

 

_Day One_

 

" _Ianto? No luck at the hospital_ ," Jack's voice came through the phone between crackles; wind hitting the mic. Ianto lowered the volume. " _Rupesh promised he'd try to get us in but the parents are keeping a close eye on their kids_."

"No progress here either. Gwen's arranging for custody of 'Timothy White', real name Clement MacDonald. We'll have him in the Hub by tomorrow."

" _That's a start but it won't tell us why only he and kids are affected. Keep looking for a child. I'll be home soon_."

 

 

_Day Two_

 

"Frobisher, if you don't tell us what you know, we can't do our jobs," Jack snapped into the phone. "What happened to Clem and his friends in 1965?"

Gwen caught Ianto's eyes as she handed Clem a cup of tea and pointed to the ceiling of the Hub. "Myfanwy?" she mouthed. Ianto shook his head.

"Out," he said quietly. Gwen nodded and patted Clem's shoulder. He was still eyeing everything suspiciously; a pterodactyl would have been too much.

"I don't care what's _classified_ ," Jack growled. " _Kids_ are in _danger_. You've got kids, don't you?" He whirled a finger at Ianto and hurried over; Ianto quickly brought something up on his screen and pointed. Jack peered at it. "Do you want Holly and Lilly to go through what happened to Clem?"

Clem twitched sharply and nearly dropped the teacup, but Jack, listening to the reply, grinned. "That'd be a good idea, Mr Secretary." He winked at Gwen. "I'm _all_ ears."

Gwen gave him a thumbs up and went back to patting Clem's shoulder. He twitched – "Isn't it? Isn't it?" – and Gwen steadied the teacup. Ianto peered at him, brow furrowed, then swung back to his screen and started typing.

It took a minute, but as Jack listened to Frobisher, his smile faded into doubt, then suspicion. "And that's all," he said flatly. "Everything that happened." Frobisher said something and Jack snorted. "Of course you are. I hope Holly and Lilly believe you," he added, and hung up.

"Bad?" Ianto asked. Jack shook his head.

"According to Frobisher, in 1965 these aliens kidnapped twelve orphans, including Clem, and left behind a cure for influenza because they considered that a fair trade."

"Bull," said Gwen. Jack saluted her.

"So they didn't know Clem wasn't taken until we found him," said Ianto, still typing, "but they know who the aliens are and sold a dozen kids to them."

"Sounds like."

Ianto frowned. "So what do they want now?"

Jack shook his head and leaned on the back of Ianto's chair. "I don't think Frobisher knows. The only useful thing he said is they're calling this species '456' because they communicated on that radio frequency. See if you can find anything on it." Ianto nodded. "And here's a weird new thing: We've got _orders_." He looked ready to laugh. "We're to find out how the children are being controlled and stop it."

Gwen narrowed her eyes. "Sounds like they're going for containment. Avoid panic and all that."

"Yeah. But let's do it anyway; might give us a clue how to stop these '456'. Clem," Jack said, stepping down in front of the chairs, "we're going to need your help. Are you up for that?"

He nodded shakily, clinging to Gwen's hand and looking at her imploringly. "Is it safe for the baby?" he asked.

Gwen squeezed his hand. "Yes, I'll be right there with you the whole time. It'll be fine."

"The test can't hurt our baby," Jack added, just because he could. When Gwen glared at him he grinned and asked, "What did Rhys say? Does he think he's got to punch me?"

"None of your damn business, Jack Harkness. And no."

 

 

_Day Three_

 

A day and a half of tests didn't turn up much; Clem described a clearer memory of the woman who'd driven him and the other children to the light, but nothing that could identify her, and all of Owen's usual equipment found nothing helpful. UNIT's tests in Washington found nothing helpful. No one worldwide had found anything helpful. Jack was starting to haul the weirder alien-origin scanners upstairs when Ianto stopped by the storage room. "Anything?"

"I'm recording the 456 radio frequency and I've hacked the mobiles of Frobisher, the Prime Minister and their staff. They're being careful not to discuss the details electronically but they're building something in Thames House."

Jack sat back against a crate, one knee hitched and spreading his legs. "Not that I'm not always ready to be impressed by you, Ianto, but how'd you manage that?"

Ianto gave a sad little smile. "Tosh had backdoor programmes written for just about everything."

Oh Tosh. Always prepared. Jack nodded and stood up. "Any idea what?"

"From the tools and materials they're requisitioning it looks like a small controlled atmosphere, highly toxic to humans." His lips thinned. "And we know they have teleporters."

"Any cameras in the area?"

"Not yet, but the Prime Minister appointed Frobisher to be 'our representative', so he'll have to report back." Jack shook his head.

"Green's a control freak. He'll have a live feed right in there with them. See if you can get into that."

"I can."

Jack smiled. "Didn't doubt it."

Ianto hesitated. "And I, ah, found the car," he said. "Well, the police found it, it's mostly all right. PC Davies had it towed here. I'll have it ready to go soon. Sorry for the inconvenience," he said brightly. Jack frowned.

"'Mostly'?"

"They didn't break into our software, all the encryption is intact and none of the hard drives are missing or copied," he reported. Jack raised an eyebrow and Ianto shuffled his feet. "There was some physical damage. I'll get it fixed up."

Jack waited. Ianto shifted his weight again, practically squirming. Jack kept waiting, face blank.

"They took the screens, keyboards, tyres, road flares, snow chains and most of the seats." He wouldn't meet Jack's eyes. "And they may have taken the engine."

He frowned. "And you let this happen."

" _Triple deadlocked_ , Jack," he wailed, and Jack cracked a grin. He tried a few seconds longer to hide it but Ianto's miserable face was too much; he chuckled.

"It's not funny," Ianto muttered. Ears burning, he stepped down and gestured to the small crate Jack had been shifting. "Need a hand?"

"Depends what you do with it," said Jack, waggling his eyebrows. Ianto gave him a look that was more relieved than anything and crouched to help lift it. "One, two three – _lift_."

It wasn't quite as heavy as it looked, but it was wider than the door and had a large "THIS WAY UP" stamped on the top. Backing up till his heels hit the doorframe, Ianto considered it. "Think it's important?"

"Nah."

They tilted the crate till it fit and made their way upstairs.

 

"Rupesh texted," Jack said a while later. He sat back against Ianto's desk and frowned. "Again. Still no children they can legally release to us or let us in to run tests on, even with retcon."

Ianto glanced up. "Should we start looking at illegally?" Gwen's head snapped round. Jack's mouth tightened.

"No," he said after a minute. "Not yet. But put together a list of children who are wards of the state. Maybe we can pressure Frobisher into pulling some strings."

Gwen was frowning. "Jack–"

"We're getting nowhere, Gwen," he said irritably, pushing off the desk. "If we can't stop the kids chanting then God knows what else the 456 can do to them. How's Clem?"

She sighed but allowed the change of subject. "Sleeping. Hasn't remembered anything else."

"Keep pushing him," Jack ordered, heading to his office. "The kids said the 456 are coming today but we don't know when so _hurry it up_."

His office door didn't slam, but only because it swung. Ianto looked awkwardly over the top of his screen, hesitated, opened his mouth–

"Don't you dare apologise for him, that's not your job," Gwen said sternly. Then a smile twitched across her face. "Bit of relationship advice: don't ever get in the habit of being his mother."

Ianto looked pleased and like he was trying hard not to look pleased, ducked back behind his screen and cleared his throat. "Frobisher's on his way to Thames House with his staff; looks like he's transferring his base of operations."

"Any clue why?"

"Best guess, they're waiting for the 456 to arrive, same as us."

Gwen groaned. "I can't push Clem any further and there's nothing more to test right now. He's hooked up to all the machines; if the aliens speak through them again we'll get all the readings we need. Until then..." she tossed her hands up.

Ianto's phone buzzed; he glanced down. Curious, Gwen craned her neck round and eyed him. "Fourth time today, Ianto."

"My sister," he answered, texting back. "She's watching half the kids on their estate and I managed to give her the idea that I know what's going on."

"Dear God, how'd you manage that?"

"Might've let something slip when I tried to borrow my nephew."

 

When finally something happened, when Clem went suddenly silent and pointed towards a wall, no one noticed.

"Right, so, roughly seventy thousand children in the UK in the care of local authorities, approximately three hundred of those in the Cardiff area," Ianto reported, spreading papers on the boardroom table. "Just under forty have no extended family or connections outside the orphanages."

"No one to notice when we take them," Gwen translated, jaw tight.

Jack ignored her. "Frobisher's finally made himself useful and is arranging for us to take custody of any children we need in order to figure this out."

"Plural?"

"Only if we need to. They're all affected the same way so there shouldn't be any need to compare them. Gwen, anything new?"

She shook her head and tossed down her own stack of printouts. "No child under about four is affected and the oldest reported cases are about thirteen, fourteen; it seems to be tied to bodily development but there's nothing concrete. No reports from anywhere the world of any child not being affected except those in comas or unconscious for medical reasons. American children don't remember waking up in the middle of the night and don't stay awake after; UNIT says they don't even open their eyes. Children in surgery don't start talking through their breathing tubes either, thank God."

"That's interesting," murmured Ianto, leafing through papers. "That suggests–"

"The 456 are taking control of their voices through the brain, not directly controlling their motor functions," Gwen finished tiredly. "That's what UNIT concluded. After talking for hours."

"So what's different about a child's brain?"

"So many things," said Gwen, "too technical for me to understand. And none of it would explain Clem."

Jack sighed and leaned on the table. "We really need a doctor on the team."

"Any word from Rupesh?"

"Busy in A&E and no experience with aliens yet. I want Martha," Jack complained.

"She's back with UNIT, who do you think I've been talking to?" Gwen snapped.

Ianto was about to step between them – remind them how short on sleep they all were and maybe a nice cup of tea? – when the telly at the end of the room, left muted on the news, caught his eye. He scrambled for the remote.

" _Yet again, every child has stopped. Every single child in the world. There seems to be no reports of speech, only that they seem to be indicating something in the sky_."

Gwen shot out of her seat. "Clem!"

Their footsteps clanged on the metal walkway as the three of them scrambled round and down the stairs, but Clem was sitting where they'd left him, on a chair in the autopsy room, attached to a dozen monitors and pointing blindly at a wall. "–are here."

He slumped. Gwen hurriedly knelt in front of him and took his hands, checking his pulse while Jack and Ianto checked all the monitors. "Nothing obvious on this one. How long ago did it start?"

"I'm comparing the last minute's readings to five minutes ago, ten minutes ago..." Ianto pushed aside one screen and went to the next. "Nothing yet. This might take a while."

"It's them," said Clem, breathing fast and clinging to Gwen. "They're back."

"It's all right, we're getting all the data now, it'll help us stop them," she promised, rubbing his hand. "Jack, you've got your readings, we're going to take all these wires off him now, _aren't we_?"

He sighed, looked through another set of results, and nodded. "Get some sleep, Clem. We'll let you know when we find something."

 

Turned out, there were a lot of 'somethings', all of them tiny and insignificant on their own. "Everything you've got matches what we've found with the children here," Martha summed up, looking tiredly down at them through the screen on the boardroom wall. "For some reason, Clem McDonald's mind is reacting exactly the same way to these 456 wavelengths as the children's minds are, but how they're making or maintaining that connection, I just have no idea."

Jack sat back and rubbed his eyes for the third time since the video call had started; Ianto reminded himself to make some more coffee. Again. Maybe he should just move the coffee things in here permanently. "So we still have no idea how to disconnect them," said Jack.

"No," said Martha. "But I just got some good news in: We've been sending narrow targeted 456 wavelengths to children in and out of chambers with electromagnetic shielding. The control group show the same signs of altered brain activity, but the children inside seem to be unaffected. We'll know for sure next time the aliens talk through them."

She was trying hard to be positive about it, forced smile and chipper tone, but Jack didn't bother. "Even if it does the 456 are smart enough to know we can't shield the entire planet and kids can't live in metal boxes forever. Forget blocking the transmission; we need to find a way to make a weapon out of it, force them to stop."

"How, Jack?" Martha replied, slumping on her desk, exhausted and dropping the optimism. "We can't even find their ship. All we've got is this wavelength and half the world is working on a way to weaponise it, with no luck. A constructive wave is our best working theory but no one can figure out how to transmit it, let alone what to send that wouldn't be just noise."

"We know the children are on the right frequency; we've just got to find something that resonates on the same frequency they do."

"Right," Martha drawled. "That'll be _easy_."

A smile ghosted over Jack's face. "Get to work," he said. "We'll go through all our alien tech, see if we've got anything. Call us back 8am tomorrow morning."

"You realise that's 3am over here, right?" asked Martha.

"Yeah."

She narrowed her eyes. "You know, you're not making that job offer any more tempting."

He grinned. "Come work over here and there won't be a time difference, _Mrs Smith_."

"That's _Doctor Jones_ to you." Martha grinned and shook her head. "Later, Jack."

The screen blanked out to a logo and Ianto raised the remote to click it off. Jack turned and blinked at him. "Didn't know you were still here."

"Thanks, ever so flattering," he replied, getting up. "Coffee? You've been in here for hours."

"Yeah, please," said Jack, rubbing his eyes. "Anything happening out there?"

"They've set a meeting for 7pm to open formal negotiations with the 456. Gwen and Clem are getting some sleep in the meantime. You should too."

"I don't sleep, Ianto."

"No, you snore deliberately and wrap your arm round my face all night for laughs," he replied mildly and stepped out the door, keeping his back to Jack and fighting down a smile as he added, "Like a teddy bear."

The indignant (embarrassed) "Hey!" was more than worth it.

 

By 7:15pm laughter felt like a lifetime ago. Watching the hacked feed meant for the Prime Minister was like living through a bad horror movie and Clem needed constant reassurance that no, it couldn't see him, didn't know he was there, it'd be all right.

When Ianto realised, "He's got that thing to lie. They're on the same side," he looked to Gwen and Jack and the glance they shared said, _Shit_.

When the 456 said "We want a gift" Jack whispered, "Oh no. No."

When it said "We will take your children" Clem broke down: "They want to take them, like they did before. Like before, like before, like before, like before, like before, like before..."

When it said "Ten percent", they stopped breathing. Even Clem went still.

Gwen blinked once, twice, then over and over as she shook her head. "They wouldn't."

"Somehow I doubt the 456 will take no for an answer," said Jack, eyes still fixed on the screen and gripping the back of Ianto's chair. "If we can't give them another option..."

Ianto breath shook in his lungs and a cold dread seeped into his stomach. "Last time they chose orphans. But... ten _percent_." He looked up, horror creeping up his throat. "Who will they choose, Jack?"

Jack jerked back, blinked. "Fuck."

Then he burst into action, scrabbling in his pocket and sprinting for the other desk. "Ianto, call your sister. Get them out of there. Anywhere." He jammed his mobile under his ear and started typing. "Gwen, get Martha back on the line, we are not resting until we find something we can use. Alice?" He said into the phone. "Alice, get Stephen and _run_. Get off the grid and stay low, _right now_."

Gwen and Ianto shared a glance; a dozen questions and old frustrations and no, not now, not now, not now. Ianto set his jaw and turned to his own phone. Work to do: Rhiannon and Johnny wouldn't have a clue how to hide from the government. They'd need false documents, new names, a safe house–

"No, not here, we're going to keep working on it here, we could be a target," Jack told 'Alice'. "Call me if you can, burner phones only. Don't believe anything the government says. Don't believe it's safe until you hear it from me."

They'd need to smuggle the kids in without being seen. Couldn't risk giving David or Mica new aliases; if they were discovered they'd be taken first. A vehicle with ample space for kids to hide in the boot, then. An SUV? Johnny would love it. They'd need new phones and he'd have to set them up himself, deliver them to Rhi face-to-face, explain how and when to use them. And he'd have to convince her that he knew what he was talking about in the first place. Aliens, still not real to most people. Bring them to the Hub? Mica would love Myfanwy.

"I know," Jack said. "I love you."

Ianto closed his eyes, breathed, and kept working.

 

  


	2. Day Four

 

 

_Day Four_

 

" _We don't know yet what they want the children for_ ," Frobisher said calmly, patronisingly. Jack gripped the phone harder. " _It could be benign_."

Jack snorted. "You don't believe that any more than I do. And even if it was, you'd be destroying millions of families to placate an alien who's already done this before. Who's to say they won't come back in another few decades?"

Frobisher's sigh was exasperated. " _And what would you suggest, Captain Harkness, that a dozen experts on international relations haven't already thought of?_ "

"You stand up to them, Frobisher! For once in your life, hold your ground. On Earth everyone's more or less on the same playing field, you understand each other, same basic culture, but with aliens? They think because you sold them a dozen kids once that you're going to do it every time. You draw a line in the sand and say no, not now, not ever, and if they try to take our kids we'll wage war to keep them."

" _We would lose_."

Jack grit his teeth. "Just let me in there. I'll talk to them. I'll stop them."

" _That's not your job_ ," Frobisher said, finally showing a little steel, all at the wrong time. " _Your job is to protect us from alien threats and so far you've failed_." Jack opened his mouth– " _If you want to help, give us a better hand to play_."

He hung up. Jack closed his eyes, breathed out slowly, and sprang to his feet.

Through the glass of his office, Ianto's nephew flinched and scurried back to his mother. Jack sighed again and scrubbed his face. He did need sleep, and even the thought of ruining a two-year joke on Gwen didn't feel like reason enough to keep pretending not to.

But not yet. Martha was waiting for another video call about transmitter options, Gwen had a theory she wanted to run by him, Clem was always either sleeping or in tears, Rupesh kept calling from St Helen's with mostly useless updates and trying way too hard to make himself useful, and Alice hadn't called back. There was no reason she would, the government hadn't agreed on anything yet, let alone begun rounding up children, but he wished he'd asked her to check in daily. Or hourly.

And now Ianto had brought his family in without asking, or even mentioning it until they were at the Plass. "When this is over, I'll give them retcon," he'd promised. "There's not enough time to find another way to explain this to them."

Which Jack agreed with, but he was too angry with the world in general to be gracious about it. And too tired. He could admit that. There was too much going on, and with the way Ianto's sister had been craning her neck to peer at him ever since they arrived, it wasn't going to be a simple visit, but they just didn't have the time.

Outside, Myfanwy landed with a thump. Two adults screamed and a little girl shrieked with joy. Ianto's blurry form was standing still between them, playing it cool and probably grinning madly inside. Oh, Ianto. He was holding out something that was either chocolate or covered in barbeque sauce, dangling it and tossing it into the air for her to catch. Jack smiled.

Well. He had a _few_ minutes. Then he'd sleep.

 

After the 456 showed what it did with the children, Clem was inconsolable. He sobbed on Gwen's shoulder and wailed, "It knows I'm here, it knows, it knows!" until Jack took hold of his shoulders and said, "It's okay. Clem, we know, shhh, listen. We'll take care of it, I promise. It's okay."

Clem breathed hard. "Save them," he whimpered. "Please."

Gwen kissed his head and walked him to the couch to settle while the cameraman scrambled out of the gas chamber. Jack looked to Ianto. "It did know," he said quietly. "How did it know he was watching?"

On the screen Frobisher said, " _And if we refuse?_ "

" _We will wipe out your entire species_."

"Shit," said Ianto. Behind them, Gwen sucked in a sharp breath. Ianto shook his head, staring. "They'll do it," he said. "They'll cave to that. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Oh God." Jack rubbed his shoulder.

But on the screen, Frobisher straightened his spine. " _I'm not sure you understand human nature_ ," he said. His voice quavered. " _We are strongly emotionally attached to our children. We have fought wars to protect them, and we would willingly sacrifice ourselves for them_." He paused, " _We... don't always care if it's not rational. Your threat may change nothing_."

" _The human infant mortality rate is twenty nine thousand one hundred and fifty eight deaths per day_ ," the 456 replied. " _Every three seconds, a child dies. The human response is to accept and adapt_."

" _Those are deaths we cannot prevent_ ," said Frobisher. " _What you're asking for is very different. We can fight you._ "

"Shit," whispered Jack. "He's counting on _us_."

" _Then the fight begins_ ," said the 456. " _A virus has been released. It will kill everyone in the building_."

Suddenly it shrieked and thrashed and Frobisher sprang back, panicked, and ran from the room. On the couch, Clem shot upright and screamed.

"Turn it off. Turn it off!" shouted Gwen, running back. "Clem? Clem?"

" _The remnant will be disconnected_."

Ianto muted the screen but Clem kept screaming, blood pouring from his ears, nose, eyes. Gwen grabbed a discarded jumper and tried to stem the flow and Ianto ran for the med kit. He slid to a stop, grabbed it, and was turning to sprint back when–

Clem went silent. Dropped.

"No..." whispered Gwen. "No! Clem!" She shook him, choking up. "Clem..."

Clem's body slumped over, quietly landing in the cushions. Gwen froze, hand stretched out towards his limp shoulder, and began to sob.

Gently, Jack tugged her to her feet wrapped his arms around her. "Shhh," he said into her hair. "We'll get them, Gwen, I promise. We've got all this recorded and we can hack into every news system on the planet. In an hour's time, everyone will know–"

"No, no!" she pushed him back. "What are you thinking, Jack? Tell the world, and then what? Mass panic?"

"They'd fight."

" _You'd_ fight." She jabbed a sharp finger into his chest. "You'd fight the aliens. Every parent on this planet will fight each other to make sure their kids aren't the ones taken!"

Jack's face hardened. "You don't know that."

" _Yes I do_!" Gwen screeched. "From the moment I knew I was pregnant I _knew_ that if it came down to it I'd throw every other child on this planet to the wolves if it would protect mine! Do you understand that, Jack?" she demanded. "Have you ever even been a parent?"

Jack froze, teeth clenched and glare still locked with hers. Gwen lifted her chin, snatching the truth from his silence.

"Yes. You have. And you'd do the same."

Ianto carefully stepped closer, med kit useless in his hands. Quietly, he said, "Jack. Even if the whole world united to fight them, we still have no way of stopping the 456 from carrying out their threat. Look what they just did. We can't block their signal."

Jack didn't look at him. Didn't move. But after a moment he bit out, "Fine. Fine. We get back to work. Whatever they used to kill Clem, I want to know about it. It's the only thing we've got that seems to hurt them."

He spun round, coat whirling majestically, and stormed off.

 

Ianto gave him thirty minutes. He fetched a stretcher, helped Gwen lift poor Clem's body into a bag and wheeled him to the autopsy room. He phoned Rupesh to come and do the post-mortem, see if there was anything they could learn. He made coffee and brought Gwen a steaming mug and a damp cloth for her red eyes. He listened to or read transcripts of all the calls flying back and forth between the Prime Minister and all the reports on Thames House. He cleaned the blood from the couch as best he could, but they'd simply need a new one. With ten minutes left, he rang Rhiannon to check on their progress to the safe house.

Twenty-seven minutes of interrogation later, half of it about Jack's charisma and cheekbones, he made his way to the manhole in the back of Jack's office and down to his dank little bedroom, coffee in hand.

Jack was asleep. He hadn't even shut the hatch, just dropped face-first onto the narrow cot he claimed was perfectly comfortable (it was _not_ ). Ianto hesitated at the base of the ladder, but he'd already made too much noise; Jack shifted, grumbling, then squinted at the light. "What time is it?"

"Too late and too early," Ianto replied, taking the last step down. "You've been out less than an hour."

"Mrmm. Right. Thanks," he said, taking the mug. He breathed in the steam and took a sip. "What's been happening?"

"About what you'd expect," said Ianto, sitting beside him. "Everyone in Thames House is dead, except a lucky few who got to the hazmat suits in time."

"Frobisher?"

"No."

Jack winced. "It's my fault," he said. "I told Frobisher to stand up to them. He put all his cards on us finding a weapon."

Ianto looked away. He could have said "We will", but... well, no. He couldn't. Jack sipped his coffee.

From above them the faint sound of the door siren drifted down; Gwen letting Rupesh in. Ianto wondered what he thought of the place. Usually seeing someone's reaction was the best part; that and Myfanwy. Not today.

Jack sipped again, looked at him, and shook his head. "What's up, Ianto?"

Right, then. Time. Ianto took a breath. Funny thing, how asking this made him more nervous than the 456. Or facing Rhiannon. "I never ask about your past," he said quietly, and Jack went still. "But I think I deserve to know about your present. Who's Alice?"

The seconds that stretched out before Jack answered felt like forever. Ianto fidgeted.

"You think she's my girlfriend, or a wife," said Jack. He shook his head. "Makes sense. She's my daughter."

Oh. _Oh_. "And Stephen's... your grandson."

"Yep."

The next question was obvious but he couldn't ask it; it was the past and he'd said he wouldn't ask about–

"Lucia Moretti. We worked together in the seventies and she died three years ago. Left me long before that."

"I'm sorry."

Jack said nothing. The steam rising from the coffee smelled so good. He'd have to fix himself a cup soon.

But first– They were here anyway, talking about it anyway– "Any... other children?"

Jack shook his head. "Some great- and great-great-grandchildren out in Bristol and the Manchester area. Two in Belgium. They don't know me."

Doing the math backwards, that would be from a partner somewhere about... anywhere from the before turn of the century to the thirties, depending on how old they were now. There was so much he wanted to ask, but, no. Enough now. "Thank you for telling me," he said instead. "It means a lot."

"It would've meant more if I'd told you before."

"Yes. But I'll take what I can get."

Jack flinched, turned and looked right at him, and Ianto looked back calmly. Jack's eyes darted between his, searching for something, and whatever it was he didn't find it. His shoulders slumped, sadness for something Ianto couldn't make out filling him up – then dove in and kissed him. Not a sex kiss; a warm and gentle one, giving without taking. Ianto breathed it in.

After a long long moment Jack pulled back, running his thumb lightly over Ianto's chin. "I'm sorry," he said. "For being the way I am."

"People change. If you want to..." Jack shook his head.

"I don't know how anymore. I'm old, Ianto. I only really know how to be a soldier."

That wasn't true, he wanted to say. Jack was so many things, so many kinder and better things, but... given the situation, he could see where that was coming from.

"Maybe that's what we need right now. A soldier. Our captain."

"And what happens when being what we need turns me into a monster?"

Ianto opened his mouth, puzzled, to protest–

"There's one way out, Ianto," said Jack, and suddenly he looked so fragile. "I only see one. And I hate myself for even considering it."

"Tell me."

Jack shook his head, clamping his jaw shut. "Not yet. I'm not sure yet."

Ianto slid his hand across Jack's shoulders, up his back and his neck. He stroked back the short strands of hair, feeling a little of the tension in his skin drain away under his fingers. Jack sighed and leaned into it, turning his cheek into Ianto's palm, and when Ianto kissed him, he took it, all of it, and yanked him closer, into his lap, tasting of desperation.

The coffee mug made it safely to the floor. Sloshed a bit. And yes, the cot was still uncomfortable.

 

Upstairs, Gwen was hovering at the edge of the autopsy room as Rupesh worked in the pit. She was looking anywhere but down, too distracted to notice their mussed hair and rumpled clothes. "He's almost done," she said. Jack nodded and leaned over a rail to see. Rupesh was closing up Clem's skull, and it was bloody. He reached for Gwen's hand and squeezed, an apology and reassurance in one. After a long second, she squeezed back: Forgiven.

"Oh! Captain Harkness!" Rupesh scrambled around to look up at him. "I was just finishing."

Jack nodded. "Carry on. What did you find?"

"It's all straightforward, sort of," he said, washing his scalpels and needle. "He died from extreme forces exerting pressure in the brain – liquefied it, basically."

Gwen winced. Jack nodded. "Thanks, Rupesh. We appreciate you coming down here." He pushed off the rail and turned to Gwen–

"It was, uh, sonic, right?" Rupesh asked. He started stripping off his gloves. "Some kind of sound waves? I can't see what else would cause this sort of damage without any entry or exit wounds. I had to put cause of death as 'undetermined'," he added.

Gwen was pulling herself together; she patted his arm and walked out to the main Hub. To Rupesh Jack said, "We don't know yet. Still investigating."

"Do you think it had anything to do with the children? I mean, it's an odd coincidence," he added.

Jack studied him for a second. "Could be," he said brightly, "that's definitely something to look into. Thanks."

Rupesh lit up. "Can I help?"

"Not right now, we've got a visitor coming you're not cleared for. Come on, I'll show you the tourist's exit. You came in through the office, right?"

He hurried the man out as fast as possible and, as soon as the hatch to the Plass shut, turned and bellowed, "Team meeting, ten minutes!"

 

Jack was on edge, she could see it. Gwen glanced at Ianto; he was tense too, but more unsettled, glancing between them and trying to figure it out. She caught his eye and shrugged, and waited. Jack still didn't say anything, leaning on the boardroom table, chewing his lip, and after a good thirty seconds she gave up. "We've got to stop the 456," she said. "God knows what the next twenty-four hours will bring if we don't."

Ianto nodded. "The Cabinet meeting just let out. They're collecting failed asylum speakers and a new representative is on the way to Thames House to–" his voice caught. "To make an offer." He looked up. "What do we do, Jack?"

Jack let out a breath slowly, too slowly, and clenched his eyes shut for one more long second before straightening up. "We only have one working theory on how to stop them: A constructive resonance wave. In three days we haven't come up with anything better and we're not likely to. What they've been using on the kids was just control but what they did to Clem was fatal. They didn't need to kill him, but they did, and I think it's because their connection to him hurt them."

"But Clem's dead," said Gwen. "We've lost that angle."

"It's not the connection, it's the sound. I've checked. It's different. We can take the sound they used on Clem and turn it back on them as a constructive wave. If it doesn't kill them it'll definitely hurt them."

"All right, so we've got the what," said Ianto, "but not the how." Suddenly he blinked, went pale. "Oh."

Gwen's neck prickled. "What?" Ianto swallowed hard. "Jack?"

"You said you'd throw any other kid to the wolves to protect yours," he said, refusing to look at her. "The only way to transmit that sound back to the 456 is to use something that resonates on the same frequency as the children so they all transmit the sound at once." He couldn't look at her. "And the only thing we know of on this planet that can do that is a child."

He looked up, pale, sick. "We have to kill a child."

 

 


	3. Day Five: Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alternate title: Someone still has to die.

 

 

_Day Five_

_12.01am_

_20 hours remaining_

 

The Hub echoed every footstep like a death knell. It wasn't quiet; it was judging. The trickle of water down the fountain sounded accusing. The ominous rumble of the airlock door was a threat. Myfanwy's squawking sounded like children screaming.

Gwen had been on the phone with Rhys for an hour, talking quietly about baby names, lost in numbness. She told him about Clem, about Rupesh and Martha, about when she would start maternity leave and how Rhys was absolutely not going to take the baby to his mother's after she went back to Torchwood. A baby could ride in a truck just as easily as sit in a cot in the Hub, and which would make him feel better? They'd have more staff soon and if Rhys didn't want to take the baby to work, she'd just see to it that their new recruits knew how to feed a child. Maybe he'd rather she started working long nights again too so he could sleep without late-night feedings disturbing his precious rest, how did that sound?

Rhys knew her well enough now to let her bury her grief in arguments. He just said, "So long as it's not Jack, eh? Don't want our baby getting confused over who their dad is."

She laughed. It felt wrong.

 

The boardroom was full of the sound of shifting papers: Ianto neatly laid out files in seven sets of paperclipped sheets with names printed in caps at the top. Gwen and Jack came in behind him, and no one made eye contact.

He cleared his throat and gestured to the table. "Just under forty children in the Cardiff area under the legal guardianship of the Crown and with no connections outside the orphanages," he said. "Eleven are terminally ill, seven with a prognosis of less than six months."

Behind him, Gwen murmured, "God, we're really doing this." Ianto felt his stomach clench and stopped for a moment, shoving it all down.

"Four of them are less than eight years old." He tapped those, set slightly to one side. "The others are ten, eleven, and thirteen years old. I think... I think it's better to ask someone old enough to understand what's happening and consent to it than take someone younger and tell them nothing. We can retcon them if they panic," he added.

"I agree," Jack said softly. "If they're willing, if they know they're saving the world..."

"Maybe we can live with this," Gwen finished. She didn't sound like she believed it. "Let's see those files."

Ianto slid the folders over one by one. "Terry Michael Brown, ten years old, leukaemia. Orphaned at three, he's been undergoing chemotherapy since age six. Chloe Grace Feldman, thirteen, cerebral aneurysm. Bypass surgery failed last month, prognosis is not good. And Olwyn Mari Pritchard, eleven, inoperable brain tumour."

There were no photographs. Just as well. Jack picked up Terry Brown's file. "Which hospitals?" asked Gwen.

"Two at St Helen's, one at Cardiff General."

"Gwen, you take St Helen's; Ianto, Cardiff General. Interview the kids, talk to the doctors and figure out who's our best option between yourselves. Frobisher's custody paperwork is ready to go. Take enough retcon for the doctors too. I'll set things up here." He took a breath. "And I'm going to talk to Green, to UNIT, anyone in that Cabinet meeting. It's possible we can get the 456 to back off if we make this threat without having to use it, but we can't bet on that. Make sure the kid knows exactly what they're getting into."

"What if they don't consent, Jack?" said Gwen. "What if none of them consent?"

Jack looked slowly at the four unopened files. "Ianto, are any of them brain dead?"

"If they were the 456 wouldn't be able to communicate through them. But there's a..." He swallowed. "There's a five year old with severe mental disabilities. Justin Markham. He'd probably never know what was happening."

"That's our last resort. Let's get going."

 

"...and you'd be a hero," Gwen told Terry Brown, smiling and gently (so gently) patting his hand. "Like Iron Man. Would you like that?"

The boy was so pale, bruised all over from the lightest of touches, with eyes too big for his face and a superhero on his lonely birthday card, eight months old. "Will it hurt?" he asked.

Gwen closed her mouth. "Well, we'll give you lots of medicine so you won't feel a thing. It'll just be a funny... ringing sort of feeling in your head."

"Will it make me better?"

She took in a sharp breath, let it out slowly. "Terry, you remember what I said earlier? This is going to stop all your pain forever, but it won't make you better. It'll mean you don't have to keep wondering how much longer it will hurt. It'll stop tomorrow. You won't live through it, but you'll save the world–"

He started to cry, huge tears in his eyes. He pulled his arm away but he was so thin and weak the light grip of her hand was too much. He wailed and Gwen snatched her hand away. "Shh, shush, sweetheart, it's okay, you don't have to–"

But his wails were loud, too loud, and the closed door wasn't thick enough. Gritting her teeth, Gwen snatched a retcon pill from her pocket, shoved it into his open mouth and clamped a hand over his mouth and nose, bracing her other arm behind him and praying she wasn't holding him too tight. He struggled, looking up with panic in his eyes – but he swallowed.

She released his nose and he sucked in a breath, and she held him till the sedative took effect. His eyes glazed over and he went limp. Gwen settled him into the bed and tucked the blankets up to his chin, and tried not to hate herself. This one would still have a chance.

His jaw and cheeks were already bruising. She'd have to retcon the night nurse who let her in, too; a visible handprint would buy a world of trouble, if it formed clearly enough. She sighed and took out her phone to text Ianto.

He'd already messaged: _No luck here. Coming to St H. Call me when you can._

Damn. She rang him.

" _Gwen?_ "

"No luck here either yet; Terry Brown's too scared."

" _Olwyn Pritchard's tumour is in her frontal lobe; the nurse said it affects reasoning and inhibitions_."

"So she can't consent," Gwen sighed. "All right, well, one more. Where are you?"

" _Parking downstairs now. Shall we do this together?_ "

"I was hoping you'd say that. This is hard, Ianto."

Through the speaker, she heard him take a long breath. " _I know. God knows what it'll be like if this one says yes_."

"See you in five."

 

Chloe Grace Feldman was thirteen, with long red hair and endlessly curious. When Gwen started off asking about her aneurysm, she described why bypass surgery wasn't possible anymore in a way that made more sense to Gwen than the doctor's explanation. "I probably won't turn fourteen," she added quietly; calm, accepting. Exactly what they needed. Gwen hated it, hated herself – then thought of the disabled five-year-old and hated that more. "They said they're going to refer me to the Make a Wish people before then."

Gwen took her hand and smiled. "What would you wish for?" Chloe shrugged, glancing sideways at Ianto for a second, then back to Gwen. "I don't know. Maybe Disneyland. I've never been."

They would never fit in a trip like that in time. Gwen nudged her playfully. "Nothing else?"

"Well..." she smiled shyly, ducking her head. "When I was little I wanted to be a princess, but I know that's not like the movies. I'd have to marry a prince and it's not as much fun as everyone says."

"I think Prince William's a bit old for you anyway. Maybe Prince Harry?" Gwen teased.

She giggled and shook her head. "No, I don't need that. Just someone nice."

"You're a lovely girl. Any young man would be lucky to have you," Ianto said, smiling, and Chloe blushed spectacularly.

"Thanks," she squeaked. Then her smile faded. "But that won't happen now. I'm going to die."

Gwen squeezed her hand and glanced at Ianto. He nodded and came round to sit on the other side of the bed. "That's what we wanted to talk to you about, love," said Gwen. "You know what's been happening lately, with all the children?" Chloe nodded. "Things are about to get much much worse."

She glanced between them. "Why?"

"Someone very bad is threatening our planet," said Ianto. "Someone not from this world, and they're using children to do it."

Chloe's brow furrowed. "You mean, like, aliens?"

"Do you believe in aliens, Chloe?" Ianto asked.

She shrugged. "I guess there could be, right? The universe is really big."

Ianto nodded. "It is. And– Can you keep a secret?" he asked, more intense than was necessary, but it made Chloe nod eagerly. "There _are_ aliens," he said in a low voice. "And some of them are wonderful and beautiful. We've met a few," he said, nodding at Gwen.

"It's our job," she explained. "Once we found one that washed up in our oceans and it was _huge_ , and it was growing so fast it was probably still only a baby. We think it was a star whale," she whispered.

Chloe's eyes were huge.

"But not all the aliens are good," said Ianto, and she looked back at him.

"They're making us talk, the nurses said so." Ianto nodded. "They want to hurt us?"

"Yes. They said if we don't give them one out of every ten children in the world, they'll kill us all. That's more than a hundred million children, Chloe."

"You've got to stop them!"

"We can't," said Gwen. "But you can. If you want to."

Her eyes narrowed, intelligent and suspicious. "How?"

Gwen took a breath. "We have a machine that can send a sound wave to them so strong it'll destroy them. Nothing left. Boom. But you know how they can only talk through children? Well, that means we need to send the signal through a child to get to them. We're looking for volunteers. Because it–"

"Because I'm dying," said Chloe. Gwen paused, mouth open, then closed it. "There's lots of kids," said Chloe, thoughts flickering across her face until landing spot on the right conclusion. "There's nothing special about me 'cept I'm dying. And if that's why... you... It's not safe, is it?"

"There's a _lot_ that's special about you," Gwen assured her.

"But yes," said Ianto. "That's why we're asking you. We don't want to ask someone to help if it means stealing years of their life. "

Chloe's eyes darted between them and her breathing quickened, but when Ianto took her hand, she clung to it. "That's why you've come in the middle of the night. To take me away."

" _Never_ without your consent," promised Ianto. "If you say no, we'll go right now and you'll be fine. We only came now because we don't have much time."

"The aliens said we have to give them the children tomorrow," said Gwen, "and the Prime Minister's going to do it."

Chloe tried to steady her breathing. "One in ten," she said. "They could take my friends?"

"Yes. They could. We don't know how they'll pick who goes."

Her eyes filled with tears. "They'd pick me anyway, wouldn't they? If they have to send kids they'll send sick ones first!"

Gwen and Ianto glanced at each other. "It's quite possible, yes," said Gwen.

Chloe started to cry. She tried hard to hold it in, taking deep breaths, gulping air down, but it didn't work. Gwen shuffled up the bed to sit by her and wrapped her arms around her, and she buried her face in Gwen's shoulder. "Shh, sweetheart. It's okay."

"No, it's not," she said, muffled and clenching Gwen's sleeve.

"No," said Gwen, "it really isn't. I'm so sorry, love. So sorry."

 

Arranging transfer of custody was disgustingly easy; Frobisher's paperwork held up even though it was the middle of the night and the nurses were cheerful as they trussed Chloe up in warm clothes and into a wheelchair she didn't really need. "Experimental procedure, hmm?" one said brightly. "I've heard wonderful things about the new research. Just imagine if it works!"

"Yeah," Chloe said quietly. "It'd be great."

Ianto wheeled her down to the lift while Gwen ducked out to ring Jack. Chloe said nothing as they went down and signed out, or as they approached the SUV. She looked up as Ianto parked her, up at the sky and the pinpricks of stars, small and pale in the faint light from the parking lot lamps. She breathed the air in deep, and for the first time since realising what was happening, smiled. "It's really pretty," she said. "They don't take me out at night."

Ianto paused, hovering by the rear door. "How long have you been in hospital?"

"A year and a bit." She was still looking up, appreciating the stars more than he had in a long time.

"Would you like to sit up front? Better view."

Chloe nodded quickly. Ianto opened the passenger door and reached in to adjust the seat, and turned to find that Chloe had climbed out of her chair and was ducking under his arm. The she stopped: The step up was as high as her thigh. "Need a hand?"

She frowned and nodded. Ianto slipped an arm behind her shoulders and under her knees; she weighed nothing at all, and she linked her arms around his neck as he lifted her up. "Thanks," she said, looking down again.

Ianto nodded, freeing the seatbelt from where it had gotten stuck behind the seat. "Here you are."

She clipped it into place. Eyes still on her lap, she asked, "What's your name?"

Oh. Er, they had forgotten that, hadn't they? "Ianto Jones. At your service," he added, bowing his head to make her smile. It worked. "My friend is Gwen, and we're going to go meet Jack; he's getting the machine ready."

Chloe suddenly stopped fidgeting. Ianto cursed himself. "It's, uh, it's not ready yet," was all he could think to say. "And you know, we might not have to use it." No, that was exactly the wrong thing to say: Don't give her hope. "Probably will. But we're going to try everything else first; we're going to tell the aliens we have a superweapon and our best and bravest agent ready to use it. It's possible they'll back off. Not likely, but– What?"

Chloe was looking at him in a way he couldn't decipher. "You think I'm brave?"

That, that was something he knew the answer to. Taking her hands, Ianto leaned in and said, with total sincerity, "I think this is the bravest thing I've ever seen anyone do in my entire life."

A smile blossomed across her face, bright and sweet. "Really?"

"Yes, really." He smiled back. "You are amazing."

She glowed, blushing and picking at the fabric of her blanket. Ianto suppressed a squirm, really not sure what to do now.

"I'll, ah, just bring your chair back."

 

"This is where you work?" Chloe's nose wrinkled as they walked in from the carpark, arm looped through Ianto's elbow for balance. "It's..." She bit her lip.

"It's what?" asked Ianto. "It's all right, we don't mind."

"It's old. And really broken," she peered over at the water-stained concrete and exposed bricks. "Can't you fix it?"

"Capturing aliens doesn't leave us much time for renovations, I'm afraid," said Ianto.

Jack had moved the couch Clem died on and set up a circular platform in the space under the 'Torchwood' wall tiles. The clear zone was marked by wide circle of tape, but for now it was full of tools and half-connected cables as he lay on his stomach, working on the transmitter. He looked up briefly as they came in.

Pointedly, Gwen walked up and said, "Jack, this is Chloe."

He paused, then rolled over and to his feet, all charm and smiles as he shook her hand and said, "Good to meet you, Chloe. Thanks for coming to help us."

She nodded politely, still looking around. Jack looked faintly surprised. "Well," he said, "we've got a lot of work to do here and Ianto, I'm going to need your help with all this. Gwen, you can take her up to the boardroom for now. We don't have much in the way of toys but there's got to be some good books around."

"Jack, it's three in the morning; I'm sure she'd like to get some sleep."

"No!" Chloe said, and immediately shied away into Ianto's side, embarrassed. "I don't wanna sleep," she mumbled. Ianto patted her shoulder awkwardly.

"Of course not," said Gwen. Over her head Jack mouthed "team meeting, now". Gwen nodded. "Chloe, would you mind waiting in up there for me?" she pointed up to the doorway that led to the boardroom. "I'll just be a minute."

She looked at the walkways and nodded. Gwen smiled, "There you go, I'll be right on up. Would you like something to... I don't suppose you drink coffee."

"We have everything for a hot chocolate," Ianto offered. Chloe smiled a little. Gwen nodded.

"There you are! I'll bring you a cuppa in just a minute. Go on, now."

Jack's eyes followed her as she climbed the spiral staircase and jerked his head towards the nearest computer. "I called Green," he said, opening the folders Ianto had set up for the digital recordings of all the hacked phones. "Outlined the plan. But since we can't give him proof it's going to work, he's not willing to risk the 456 'calling our bluff' and is going to round up the kids anyway."

"Jesus," said Gwen. "Does the man have no soul?"

"I think he's part Slitheen," Jack replied bitterly. "First five minutes all he said was 'how did you get this information?' and 'who do you think you are?' I told him to shove it. The conversation went downhill from there."

"So now what?" asked Ianto. Jack sighed.

"I told him I'm not letting him give away those kids, but if we can't get someone to deliver our ultimatum to the 456 we're just going to have to go for it." He glanced up at Chloe, wandering the upper balcony. "And hope it works."

Ianto nudged Jack's hand off the mouse and scrolled through the files. "You didn't delete the your call with him, right?"

"No."

"The new representative to the 456 is Colonel Oduya, from UNIT." Ianto double-clicked on a file and brought up all of Oduya's contact numbers. "Let's bring it to him."

Jack nodded. "Good idea. But why'd you want the recording of my call?"

"Well," said Ianto, looking up innocently, "if we need to get Green out of the way."

Gwen and Jack grinned and Jack slapped his shoulder. "Great idea. I'll call him now. Ianto, go through the rest of these recordings, see what else you can find. Gwen..." He paused, looking Chloe's way again. "Keep her occupied. Any distractions you can think of. We don't want her backing out at the last second."

"She's a brave girl," Gwen said solemnly. "She volunteered for this to keep her friends safe, and she knows she's dying anyway."

"Maybe," said Jack. "But everyone gets scared when they're about to die. Everyone."

Gwen nodded and sighed. "If it were morning I'd take her out. She's a princess girl, I'm sure we could find some dress shop or something to make her happy."

"We still have most of tomorrow before the 456's deadline comes round," said Jack. "Take her first thing. Here," he dug out his wallet and gave her a credit card. "Almost an unlimited line. Spoil her. Anything she wants."

Gwen took it gratefully. "That'll help. But it's four hours till anything opens and she's a smart girl, Jack. I don't want her figuring out how exactly she's going to die."

He grimaced. "Slip something in her hot chocolate, let her sleep until morning. That much less time to panic."

She rubbed her face and sighed. "I hate this, Jack. I hate us."

"Me too."

 

  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm nervous about how much of this fic ended up depending on making you all like Chloe, or at least not hate her. OCs are hard. Writing kids is _awful_. One line sounds too mature, the next too childish. I've got no idea if it got you to be emotionally attached enough for it to hurt the way I wanted it to. 
> 
> One more chapter to go, then I get to start writing the happy fluffy fic this is all setup for. I've decided there will be kittens. And a wedding. But that was always the plan. The kittens are new.


	4. Day Five: Morning

 

 

_Day Five_

_7:00am_

_12 hours remaining_

 

They worked quietly while Chloe slept; no one felt much like talking anyway. Even when Ianto's comb of the hacked data turned up Green's plan to sell the abductions as failed inoculations, he just shook his head dully. "Jack, they're going to take the kids from schools," he said, slumping back in his chair. "No word yet on exactly when." He paused and looked round. "Jack?"

"On a call with Colonel Oduya," Gwen said from the floor. She was double-checking all the connections on their transmitter platform; Ianto and Jack would be running tests after Chloe was out of the Hub. "The latest emergency meeting must be over."

Ianto nodded. "I'll check the hacks, see what else they're lying about. And I've got you a list of shops in town that open early. Boutiques, shoe shops, all that sort of thing."

Gwen smiled faintly. "Don't suppose any of them serve a good breakfast?"

"I'll find you something."

Just then Jack came back from his office, holding his phone and looking angry again. Gwen and Ianto straightened up. "Anything?"

"Cabinet agrees with Green, not enough certainty that this will work to make an effective threat," he snapped, stalking across the narrow space and dropping into an empty desk chair. "Oduya's more optimistic, he's going to feel out the 456, see if he can intimidate it. I get the feeling he might ignore Green and his lackeys and make the threat anyway, but he's not confident it'll work either. He'll call me the second anything changes."

"But it looks like we'll have to do it," finished Gwen. Jack scrubbed his face with his hands.

"It looks like we'll have to do it. But there's hope, Gwen, I'm not giving up."

"You wouldn't be Jack Harkness if you did."

Ianto checked his watch. "Chloe's sedative should be wearing off soon," he told Gwen, "and your first 'princess dress' shop will be opening in about half an hour."

Gwen nodded and stretched, working out the kinks in her back as she stood up. "I'll ring Rhys, have him bring you boys some breakfast. Only text me while we're out; don't call unless it's an emergency. I don't want her thinking about anything here."

They nodded. Jack took over running checks on the machine and Ianto went back to trudging silently through the computer-generated transcripts of everything their phone bugs had picked up at the Cabinet meeting. He was so sleepy, he almost missed what was strange about one line, and read it twice more before he was sure. "Jack, you need to see this."

Jack was busy smiling nicely and waving at Chloe, but as soon as they were out of sight he hurried over. "What?"

Ianto was pulling up the audio file. "Here."

" _Colonel, I want a magic bullet as much as you do_ ," a man was saying, " _but the 456 can liquefy our brains any time they want. We can't risk it_."

Jack shrugged. "So?"

"Here." Ianto tapped the transcript: _liquefy out brains_.

"Yeah, that's how Clem died– Oh." Jack got it. "We didn't tell them that. So... Rupesh."

"Rupesh," Ianto agreed. "You think he's a spy?"

"I think he's the perfect candidate. Too perfect," Jack said, hopping over the cables to the coat rack. He pulled on his coat and his teeth flashed dangerously. "Time to pay Dr Patanjali a little visit, make him an offer he's definitely going to forget."

Ianto resisted the urge to get up and straighten his lapels. "Retcon."

"Retcon. Two days should be enough, you think?"

"Better a week. Or a month. Sends a clearer message to whoever's behind this."

Jack grinned and headed for the storage cabinet. "I won't be long. Start running those checks on the transmitter and make sure we've got a clean copy of that sound wave. I want everything ready before any kid gets to school today."

Ianto nodded at his back, watching the coat swish as he walked away. "On it."

 

Shopping with Chloe, helping her try on dresses and gorging themselves on pancakes for breakfast, it was almost easy to forget why they were doing this, and Gwen was happy to ignore all that misery for a while. Chloe was throwing herself into their shopping spree, exclaiming over everything and constantly thanking Gwen, and asking, with less and less shyness, if they could get her hair done next or her nails, and maybe, just maybe, could she get those satin heels in the shop window?

Ianto had texted about eight o'clock to say the rounding up was scheduled to start at midday and Jack wasn't willing to wait longer than that; she was to have Chloe back at the Hub by quarter to. As subtly as she could, she moved them from shop to shop a little faster.

They'd settled in a beauty parlour that had had every morning appointment cancelled by customers staying home with their children, and they were more than happy to indulge a sick little girl instead. Gwen had thrown so much money around in the last three hours that when Chloe asked her to please join, they had awfully pretty sparkly nail polish, she shrugged and settled into the next chair. "You having a good morning, then?"

Chloe beamed and nodded. "It's perfect." She caressed the skirt of her new dress with her free had; white satin with a glittery layer of chiffon floating over it. The neckline was cut low, meant for an older girl, but the ladies in the dress shop had worked some magic with the lacing and made it fit, though the hem dragged a little. Chloe hadn't minded, saying that the perfect shoes they'd just gotten would make her tall enough, though she'd had trouble walking in them and wobbled a bit on her way. "Can I have proper makeup too?"

The lady quietly filing Chloe's nails caught Gwen's eye and nodded, and Gwen smiled widely. "Of course. You'll be pretty as a picture."

"What sort of look would you like, dearie?" the woman asked. She dried her hands and reached for a pile of magazines, flipped through one for a moment and laid it out on Chloe's lap. "Have a look, see what catches your eye."

Chloe dove in, turning the pages back and forth with her free hand and folding the corners of several, comparing and deciding. Gwen waved over another of the staff and slipped her five pounds. "Do you mind? I'm dying for a coffee."

Her phone buzzed. Another text from Ianto: _Machine works & is ready to go. No word from Oduya. FYI Rupesh was a spy, Jack has retconned him. Thanks for breakfast :)_

Rupesh! Gwen scowled. She'd started clearing Owen's desk for him. Who had the nerve–

"Gwen?"

She smiled brightly and shook her head. "Nothing, sweetheart, just someone being funny. How are those nails looking?"

Chloe eyed her a second longer but shrugged it off. Carefully she held out her right hand and spread her fingers for inspection: Five perfect ovals painted a smooth white. "What do you think?"

"Gorgeous! Will you be getting your toes done too?"

"I don't know." Chloe stretched her feet out from under the hem of her dress and frowned thoughtfully at it. "Will you see it when I have the shoes on? The toe hole is really small."

Gwen shook her head. "It doesn't matter if I see it, it's about how you feel. Do you want painted toes?"

She nodded.

"Then painted toes it is. Oh, _thank_ you," she said to the woman (Sophia, by her nametag) who had returned with a coffee. "You're a lifesaver."

"Happy to, it's so quiet right now. And how's our lovely lady?" Sophia asked, pulling over another stool. "Have you picked your look for the day?"

Chloe used the flat of her hand to push the magazine over without touching it with her new nails. Sophia nodded at them. "Those'll be dry now. Oh, this is stunning," she said, holding up the page next to Chloe's face. "Perfect look for you. Shall we get started?" Chloe nodded and Sophia pulled over a rolling tray full of makeup. "So, who's the lucky boy?"

Gwen was breathing in her coffee, happy to let Sophia and her co-workers take over for a while, and didn't pay attention until Chloe mumbled, very quietly, "No one, really."

"Oh, come on, there has to be someone," Sophia said, nudging her playfully. "No one you fancy?"

Chloe squirmed. "Well..." She snuck a lightning-fast glance at Gwen, who was facing away from her; Gwen only caught it in one of the mirrors. "Maybe."

"I knew it!" Sophia said. "Tell me everything. Is he handsome?"

Chloe nodded shyly.

"Smart?"

She nodded.

"Kind?"

Chloe fidgeted and blushed, but her smile reached her ears. In a tiny voice she confided, "He's the nicest person I ever met."

Gwen slipped outside the next chance she got.

 

"And the Prime Minister is going ahead with it?" Martha exclaimed from the screen. "That _fucker_."

"Careful, I'd consider that a compliment," Jack said, but his usual spark was lacking. Martha was too angry to notice.

"And UNIT is complicit in this. I can't believe it. _Millions_ of _kids_. That job offer of yours is sounding better by the second."

Jack shook his head, grim. "We're no better than them today."

"It's a terrible choice to make, Jack, I don't envy you at all, but one willing sacrifice for millions isn't the same as giving in without a fight – and covering it up! God, I wish the Doctor was here."

Jack perked up. "Can't you reach him?"

"I tried, he's not answering. Something big must be happening. We're on our own." She took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders. "How can I help?"

He sighed and nodded to Ianto. "Unless you can come up with a miracle there's not much left. We just need you to double-check our calculations for the transmitter."

"Sending them through now," said Ianto, hitting _Enter_. "And thank you."

"No problem, I wish there was more I could do. How's the little girl?"

"Enjoying my credit card with Gwen," Jack replied. "Seems to be holding up okay." Martha nodded.

"Good. I don't suppose I can help with that, but let me know. I'll call right away if I find any problems. How much time have we got?"

Ianto checked his watch. "Two hours, seventeen minutes."

Martha's jaw tightened. "I'll be in touch before then. Thanks, Ianto."

The screen went blank. Jack sighed. "We really are out of things to do," he said, leaning on his elbows. "I need to keep busy, Ianto. I need to do something."

Ianto took a moment, studied him. "You're worried about Alice and Stephen."

The way he tensed up answered that. Ianto laced his fingers together and picked his words carefully. "She can drop off the grid on a moment's notice. It sounds like she can protect herself."

"She can, Lucia and I taught her plenty, but it doesn't matter." Jack rubbed his face, digging his fingers hard into his forehead as he dropped heavily into a chair. "She's my child, Ianto. You never stop worrying."

He nodded, though he knew he didn't understand, not completely. Not yet. Idly, he wondered what it would be like. "Do you regret it?" he asked quietly, after a moment. "Having children."

"I do right now," Jack muttered, but he sighed. "No. No, not one of them. They all grew up to be amazing people. And I'm biased," he chuckled faintly, "but they did. God, it all goes by so fast."

Ianto reached over took his hand, ran his thumb over the warm skin of Jack's knuckles, watching his eyes cloud over with memories older than he was. Maybe he was remembering teaching Alice to walk, or the day she was born. Maybe one of the other, nameless children, long dead. God, what would that be like? How many funerals had he stood at? Ianto squeezed his hand and Jack blinked, looked up, and wrapped his other hand over them both. He offered a small smile.

"I don't talk about my kids because it hurts too much," he said. "And it's too strange, impossible for anyone to really imagine. The Doctor's the only one who understands. I don't do it to hurt you."

"I know," said Ianto. "I know, Jack, but I'll listen anyway. I want to know you."

Jack sighed. He pulled their hands to his chest and kissed Ianto's wrist, and reached out and cupped his cheek. "Me too," he said. "I'm just not good at it."

Ianto leaned into the touch and kissed his palm."We can start slow. Little things–"

His phone rang.

Ianto closed his eyes and took a moment to violently hate the thing. Jack's hand fell away. Ianto grimaced, checked the screen and immediately put it to his ear. "Gwen?"

" _I need a favour from you, Ianto, a big favour_."

He frowned and straightened up. "I'm putting you on speaker. What kind of favour?"

" _It's Chloe. She's fine, don't worry – she's not backing out or panicking or anything_."

"So what's the problem?" Jack asked, leaning in.

" _Not a problem, exactly_." Gwen sighed, sounding frustrated. " _It... Ianto, she fancies you_."

He blinked. "Pardon?"

" _It's a silly crush, probably just that you're the first man who's paid attention to her in ages. Normally she'd get over it, but now she's gone and dressed herself up like a bride and–_ " Gwen took a steadying breath. " _Just... indulge her a little_."

"Um..." Ianto looked up at Jack, feeling like the rug had been pulled from under him. "How?"

" _I don't know! Tell her she look lovely. Like a princess or something, she likes that. Princesses and ball gowns and happily ever afters. And don't let her see you two together; leave her little fantasy intact_."

"Of course, Gwen, don't worry about it," Jack assured her. "Whatever makes her happy."

Ianto grabbed his sleeve and covered the mic. "I can't," he hissed.

"Trust me, Ianto, you've got the perfect ass to be Prince Charming." Jack tugged the phone free and said, "Gwen, we'll handle it. Just keep doing what you're doing, okay? Call if you need anything."

She sighed, audibly relieved. " _Thank you_ ," she said. " _This is so hard_."

"We'll get through it," Jack promised. "See you soon."

Ianto watched numbly as he ended the call. "Jack, what the hell am I supposed to do?"

"Seriously? You've got the looks, just turn up the charm. It's just for a few hours. Less."

"Not what I meant. She's _thirteen_."

Jack sobered. "I know," he said gently, "but for now you've got to forget about that."

"Is that advice from a father?"

He froze, and for a second Ianto thought he'd gone too far. Then: "If it were one of my girls, that young and with hours to live? I wouldn't care how old you are long as you make her happy."

Ianto let out a long, long breath, and rested his head in his hands. "All right. All right, I'll... be her boyfriend. 'Prince', something like that." He shook his head. Jack squeezed his shoulder.

But what to do, exactly? He'd sat through a few Disney movies while babysitting Mica and remembered Rhiannon watching _Cinderella_ over and over when they were kids. What would Chloe want? He couldn't exactly rent a castle or jewelled crowns, and the only magic-like things around the Hub were too dangerous. Gwen had already gotten her a dress and shoes and whatever other pretty things little girls liked (fairy godmother Gwen; on any other day he'd chuckle at that), but what else? Lisa had never wanted any of that.

But... there was one time Lisa had said she'd felt like a princess. It was an offhand comment, half joking; they'd been caught in a light rain on the way back from work the day after watching _Singing in the Rain_ together, their sixth date. She'd stolen the umbrella and twirled around to make him laugh and chase her, and when he'd caught up she pulled him along, waltzing through Jubilee Park until they were laughing themselves silly. He couldn't recreate something that spontaneous, but...

"Do you know where the Christmas lights are?"

Jack looked at him, puzzled. "Yeah. What are you thinking?"

"Magic."

 

Wedding fairies, he'd called them once. It was close enough. Twenty minutes, a box of Christmas lights and a bit of judicious rearranging later and the greenhouse looked like a garden; all the lab equipment was tucked away behind the taller plants and they'd cleared just enough floor space to dance, if one ignored the stains on the concrete. Without the main lamps they were faint marks anyway, and the twinkling lights strung in and above the greenery made the place glow. Jack had dusted off Tosh's desk speakers and Ianto was nearly done downloading and setting up an playlist on his iPod when Jack ducked in to say, "They're upstairs. You ready?"

No. Not in the slightest, this was the most awkward, most _wrong_ thing he'd ever agreed to and was approaching panic: They were preparing a girl to die, prettying up the slaughterhouse to ease their consciences– But it was too late, had been since they'd texted Gwen to come back ASAP; there was certainly no stopping now. So he nodded tightly and breathed out, and in, and shook himself.

Jack slowed down, stepped over and pulled him into a hug. "Don't think about it," he said. "Just put it out of your head for now. Trust me, it's the only way."

He breathed in deep, breathed in Jack, and tried to focus on all the things he'd been rehearsing in his head: _You look amazing, Chloe. Would you care to dance, my lady?_ That was as far as he'd gotten: generic compliments and superficial chivalry. But what else could he say? Couldn't ask about her family; she was an orphan, and her friends – she'd volunteered for all this to save them. Couldn't ask about life at the orphanage for the same reason, couldn't ask about places she'd like to go because she never would. Everything led back to the same thought: She was about to die.

The door siren sounded. Jack pulled back and straightened Ianto's collar. "You'll be fine. You've got the flowers?"

Ianto nodded absently at the half-hidden table with the speakers and the child-size bouquet of red roses tucked beside it. Jack nudged his cheek. "Smile. Act like the girl of your dreams is about to walk in here in a white dress."

"Lisa never planned to wear white," he blurted out– and oh God, he hadn't wanted to say that, why had he, where had that come from? Jack looked a little surprised too, and Ianto rushed to add, "And I don't think you'd look right in a dress."

Jack grinned and winked. "Just you watch me." Then, with a quick glance round to make sure their guest couldn't see, kissed Ianto on the lips and brushed his fingers across the front of his trousers, just light enough to make him catch his breath. "You can do this," he said – and dashed out. His voice echoed back as he went: "Wow, Chloe, you look amazing..."

Well, that was one line stolen. Ianto peered through the foliage: Gwen was holding Chloe's hand tightly as they went the long way round the Hub, keeping the machine out of sight, blurred by the foggy glass of the greenhouse. Jack was talking fast as he walked them up the stairs, half truths about how "Ianto was shy about it so be nice to him, okay?" and "keeps talking about you, you're really going to stun him with that dress".

She was thirteen, she was _thirteen_ –

Don't think about it.

He took one more deep breath and tapped the iPod: soft classical music started drifting out of the speakers.

The girl who appeared at the door of the greenhouse was exactly as young as he remembered. Her hair was pinned up in long loose curls and the dress was undoubtedly bridal, trying to show off curves she didn't have yet. Her face was made up to look older, bright red lipstick and dark shadowed eyes. Not old enough to make pretending any easier. Ianto put on the best smile he could and hoped it wouldn't crack.

Her eyes went wide, huge, as she came under the lights of the greenhouse, and when Ianto stepped into view in his tidiest black suit and the bow tie Jack had scrounged from somewhere, she gasped in delight. Behind her, Jack and Gwen hovered in the doorway.

Ianto kept his face on and took her hand, bowed and kissed it like a gentleman. "You look lovely."

She blushed and giggled, glancing back and grinning at Gwen. Ianto took the moment to slip the roses out from behind his back and offer them to her. "I hope you like them."

"Oh my god, they're real! Gwen, look!"

Gwen edged in, catching Ianto's eye with a look of amused sympathy, and beamed down at Chloe. "They are gorgeous, aren't they? Shall I put them in water for you?"

Chloe nodded and put them in Gwen's hand, and whirled back round to Ianto to hug him round the middle. "Thank you!"

With a slightly terrified look towards Gwen and Jack, Ianto very lightly put his arms round her back. She was awfully small and had a hug like a vice. "You're welcome," he said. "I'm glad you like them."

Over her head, Jack nodded silently, mouthed "you've got this", and he and Gwen backed away, closing the door behind them.

Ianto let the hug drag on; it seemed the easiest thing to do. Her grip relaxed a bit, arms wrapped around him more loosely as she leaned her cheek against his chest, eyes closed and smiling, hanging on to the moment. And bit by bit, Ianto relaxed. He let his arms stop hovering a millimetre off her skin and hugged her back properly. It wasn't quite so frightening; she was just a child. A person.

The first song faded out and the second began; a waltz, nice and slow. Feeling steadier, Ianto extracted himself and stepped back to offer a hand. "May I have this dance?"

Chloe smiled and bobbed a curtsey. "You may," she said primly. She didn't know where to put her hands, and they ended up bumping palm and elbow as he reached round and she tried to reach his shoulder. "Sorry," said Ianto, looping round to settle his hand on her back. "I should warn you," he admitted, "I never learned how to dance."

She giggled. "Me neither."

There was nowhere near enough space in the greenhouse to dance properly, so Ianto just swayed them side to side, but it seemed to work well enough. Chloe was smiling – up at him, then quickly down, then up again, shyly but wide, fit to burst. "They never let me do this at the hospital."

"Oh?" Seemed an odd thing to try in a place like that. "I'm sure they had a good reason."

"No, they were just busy."

"Oh." _Not good, Ianto, say something_. "I suppose if you'd had practice I'd be making a fool of myself right now."

"I only tried once. Have you seen _Enchanted_?" He shook his head. "There's this ball scene where Giselle and Robert are dancing and there's this really pretty sad song called _So Close_ and I saved up for the CD and played it all the time, and I tried to do the steps the way they did but it didn't really work." She shrugged. "There were lots of lifts and no one would do the boy's part for me."

Ianto listened to the music for a moment. It was subdued, but there were sweeping moments here and there. Good enough. "How long did it take you to save up?"

"Not too long but they didn't have them in the shop the first two times I went to get it so I had to ask them to order it from Lon– doooon!" she shrieked as Ianto suddenly swung her up by the waist, slowly turning them round and round. It wasn't in time with the beat anymore, but he managed to set her down on her feet mostly smoothly, and she was delighted.

"That was great!"

He smiled for her and offered his hand again. "My lady?"

This time they got the arms right the first time. Chloe started swaying, and when the music felt right she stepped out and twirled, sometimes with her eyes closed, sometimes watching him and blushing. Ianto let her lead, smiled at the right times, listened as she chattered about her music and her friends and how she'd always been the fastest at sliding down the playground fireman's poles and how she wanted to be a fireman someday. He asked the right questions to keep her going and found answers when she wanted to know about him, glossed over almost all the details and told the same old story about his father being a tailor.

And maybe he became too comfortable, showed some hint of disinterest or asked a question too mechanically – and maybe not, maybe he was perfect, but he didn't notice when she went quiet, swaying close enough to look him in the bowtie instead of the eye. "I know you're just doing this to be nice to me."

He jolted, almost lost the beat. "Chloe–"

"But it's really nice of you anyway. " She rested her forehead on his chest, curling up, the sadness getting to her. "Thank you."

Ianto hugged her gently, still swaying to the violins singing for her from the foliage. "Least I could do," he said into her hair. "I'm sorry."

"I'm going to be a hero," she said, muffled by his jacket. Her small shoulders were shuddering as she tried to stamp down the start of tears. "That's almost as good as a fireman, r-right?"

"Firewoman." Ianto pulled back a bit and tilted her chin up. A few tears had welled up enough to spill through her makeup. He carefully wiped them off with a handkerchief. "And my princess."

A little smile fluttered over her face. Ianto tucked the cloth into his pocket and held out a hand.

"Now," he said softly, "I believe we still have another dance."

Chloe cuddled up to him again, head on his chest and one hand in his, and they swayed to the music, not saying a word.

Ten minutes later, or maybe it was hours, Gwen knocked quietly on the door. "It's time, sweetheart."

 

Jack held his phone tight, willing it to ring, willing Colonel Oduya to call back and say he was wrong, it worked, the 456 were cowed. He'd gone in, against orders, and threatened them with nothing but Jack's word and Martha's analysis to say they could do it, and he'd been laughed at. " _It said we would fail, and– God, the sound it made. If you have a working weapon, Captain Harkness, you have to use it now_."

The working weapon was a little girl in virginal white gripping Ianto's hand like a lifeline as they came down the stairs, Gwen at her back, breathing hard and eyes darting every which way like a caged bird. She was shaking and sniffling, but she kept walking. "Meredith and Angie, they'll be okay, right? They're gonna be okay–?"

"Yes," Gwen promised, squeezing her hand, "they will, all your friends will be fine; you're saving them. You're saving their lives right now."

They rounded the fountain to the machine, big circular platform with tape marking the safe zone, cold metal with the light of the water reflecting on it. Chloe froze, gripping the arms of both her protectors. "That's it?"

Jack nodded slowly. "All you have to do is stand in the middle."

"Will i– will it hurt?" she squeaked.

Gwen stepped round to a desk and brought back the needle of morphine they'd prepared, a lethally strong mix blended with some alien chemicals from Owen's research that would make it kick in pretty much instantly. "This will keep you from feeling anything at all. Hold out your arm?"

Used to taking needles, she offered her fist without looking, ignoring the tapping for veins and numb to the prick as it broke her skin. "Ianto?"

"I'm right here."

She looked up at him, big eyes wet and terrified. "Will you think about me? A–after?"

He took hold of both her shoulders and leaned in. "I could never forget you," he swore. "You're the bravest person I've ever known."

She burst into tears – ugly, messy, snotty and heartwrenching. Ianto hugged her tight and kissed her forehead, offering his handkerchief and walking them forward, past the computers wired up to control it, over the cables and to the platform, murmuring promises the whole time. Gwen followed, and as Chloe stepped up, she knelt down and arranged the train of her skirt, swirling it round her feet like a magazine pose. "You're so beautiful, darling," she said, and leaned in to kiss her cheek. "Bless you."

Gwen backed out of the clear zone, reaching blindly for Jack's hand. He took it, tugged her closer and steadied himself, feeling his eyes prickle and burn. Gwen's tears were welling in both eyes. "We're monsters," she whispered.

Jack gripped her hand and thought about Stephen, about David and Mica and all the others, everyone everywhere. Thought about Alice, all the parents. And all he could see was this little girl with red hair and panic on her face, clinging to the only person left to save her, and he wasn't letting go.

"Ianto." It was after noon. Green would be rounding up kids already. It had to be now. " _Ianto_."

He gently pried Chloe's hands free, held them in his and leaned in till their foreheads touched. "Princess," he said. Chloe's eyes were fixed on him, raw animal terror, and from under his arm he untucked the bouquet of roses they'd bought for her earlier, slightly squashed and swiped from Gwen's desk as they passed. "I hope you like them."

He pressed them into Chloe's grip, something for her to cling to as his hands slid away. He glanced over his shoulder, and Jack nodded.

Ianto looked at Chloe. Terrified child, dressed up and moments from being murdered, staring at Ianto as he became the villain in her fairytale.

But Ianto – he had the stuff of princes in him, and as Jack watched he figured out the last piece of the puzzle. He leaned in and kissed her, properly and holding nothing back, her first and last kiss and the only one that mattered.

When he pulled back she was staring at him with joy, wonder–

And Jack hit _Enter_.

Chloe went stiff, frozen in that last moment. Electricity crackled; Ianto wasn't in the clear. Gwen leapt in and yanked him back, and he stumbled, too busy staring as the shrill noise built up like a siren, and Chloe opened her mouth and _screamed_.

The resonance pierced like a knife. Chloe started to tremble on the platform, rattling and shaking the petals from her roses. They drifted to the floor as the stems broke in her hands, blindly scrabbling for grip. "God, is she conscious?" breathed Gwen. Jack shook his head.

"I don't know."

On the muted news, footage broke in of children in some private school, all looking up with mouths wide open. "It's working."

Chloe's nose bled, red lines dripping onto her mouth, her collar, then out of her ears. Ianto stood frozen at the edge of the clear zone, frayed and cracking. "God, what have we done?" he whispered, horrified. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry..."

Chloe started rattling, blurring into streaks of red and white with _TORCHWOOD_ stamped in huge letters behind her. God, her _eyes_ were bleeding, and she was still screaming, louder and louder, too loud, so loud her throat must be shredding, and it tore at all of them, heartbreaking–

And she dropped. The noise cut off. She hit the floor with a wet smack.

Gwen hurried to her side, checking her vitals as if there was any hope she'd survived that, but Ianto... Ianto just sort of collapsed. He sank to his knees, staring blankly, and breathed, "What have we done?"

The computers were flashing, readouts and data Jack couldn't care less about; he pulled the plug and crouched by Ianto, slow and careful, feeling him shudder under his touch. He wrapped both arms around him and tugged, tucking Ianto against his chest and murmuring, "Shhh, it's over now. She feels nothing."

He felt Ianto shake his head and shushed him again, stroking his hair. Ahead, Gwen was cradling Chloe's limp body, laying her out and smoothing red hair back into place. She dabbed at the blood on Chloe's face with the handkerchief, mopping up some and leaving streaks with the rest. She folded it, found a clean patch, and wiped again, slowly and neatly, careful of her makeup. She folded Chloe's hands on her belly and tucked the last surviving ragged rose under her hands, peaceful and beautiful next to the bloodstain spreading through white satin.

"I understand now," Ianto said quietly, thick and muffled by Jack's shirt. He shifted and looked up, eyes red. "Why you don't talk about your children."

Jack kissed his head and let himself cry.

 

Time was still in the Hub: No sunlight, no sounds to hint at change from day to night, only Myfanwy flying in for her evening meal, and she kept her distance from this strange mess. Ianto was grateful. It could have been hours they sat there, or days, all three of them numb and curling against each other, but when a phone rang and shattered the silence, it was 12:53pm.

Gwen shook herself and moved away, reaching up to the desk for Jack's phone and leaving a cold draught in her wake. "Martha?" she answered. "What's happened?"

She was quiet for a moment, listening, then sighed in relief. "Thank God. He saw it die?" Then, colder: "Did it suffer?"

Jack's shirt scratched lightly against Ianto's cheek as he turned to look at Gwen. Ianto didn't; he could imagine her face. It was exactly like his.

"Good. Yes, everything here work–" She sucked in a breath. "Went to plan."

Through a crack in the cocoon of Jack's arms, Ianto saw Gwen glance at him, then walk quickly into Jack's office. Her voice faded out.

Ianto's eyes felt like boiled sandpaper. His left leg was numb and he shifted to free it, felt the pins and needles shooting through. Chloe's body was just in front them and he rested his head against Jack, watching her not breathe, not smile, not laugh. Twenty-four hours ago he hadn't known her name. Jack's fingers were carding through his hair, four points of warmth in the cold. They should fetch a stretcher soon, and a body bag.

"She wanted to be a fireman."

Jack's fingers stilled, then moved again, softer. "My son Malcolm did too. Never got around to it."

Ianto blinked, looked at Jack; he was staring into the distance, fragile and sad, but a hint of a smile in the corner of his mouth. A happy memory, then. Ianto squeezed his hand, thanking him and comfort in one. Maybe someday, eventually, he'd be able to smile for Chloe.

At some point Gwen came back, footsteps hurried and holding out Jack's phone. "I think it's your daughter."

Jack snatched it, jostling Ianto. "Alice?" Ianto caught himself and sat up, feeling every ache in his body, and waited as Jack listened, and finally sighed in relief. "It's okay, it's over; that was us fighting back. Are you both okay?"

He took Jack's hand and thought about Rhiannon. She'd have had the fright of her life, with David and Mica, but they were safe now. He should call her, tell her that. They'd have to be brought back and retconned too, the sooner the better.

"Me too," said Jack. "Call me when you get home. Do you want me to come by?"

Gwen had fetched a sheet and spread it out over Chloe's body, and was slumped in a chair at her desk and staring at her fingers, nails painted in sparkling gold, looking ready to cry again. They probably had nail polish remover around somewhere, or there was the chemist's just beyond the Plass. Ianto made a mental note to get some for her.

"I'd like that. Thank you. Tell Stephen I'll see him soon."

UNIT would want a written report of everything that had happened, that would take a few hours, and they needed to open an investigation into Rupesh and find out who sent him. Screening new recruits would have to be stepped up. And the SUV still needed repairs, and someone had to take down the those lights in the greenhouse–

"Ianto," said Gwen. He blinked up at her. "It can wait."

She knew him so well. Ianto nodded numbly, aware of Jack watching him now too, and let out a deep breath, bracing himself to stand. He could do this.

"Look, I've got to go," Jack told Alice. "Someone here needs me." He listened for a moment, and smiled softly. "I love you too."

He hung up and pulled Ianto in for a kiss on the temple, and reached out for Gwen's hand. "It's been a long day," he said in his boss voice. "I think we all need some time off." He squeezed Ianto's shoulder gently and stood up. "Go home," he told them, offering a hand to pull Ianto to his feet. "Get some rest." 

Gwen shook her head and stayed in her chair. "You go," she said, looking down at the body. "Take Ianto home, eat something, and Ianto, make sure he sleeps too. I'm staying with Chloe."

Jack hesitated, looking between them. Ianto tried hard not to show how badly he needed Jack nearby to fall asleep tonight. "You sure–?"

"I want to stay with Chloe."

Slowly, Jack nodded. He stepped in to hug her, and kissed her forehead. "Take care of yourself. Call Rhys. We'll be back in the morning."

In the quiet, Ianto stood alone, looking down at the sheet. Quietly, he asked the world, "Do you think we can ever be forgiven?"

Gwen closed her eyes. 

It was a long, long time before Jack answered. "I think," he said, "we have to live with it either way."

Above them, Myfanwy soared.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, there you are :( A whole lot of happier things follow on from here in this verse, with both Ianto and Stephen alive (and Torchwood not, you know, bombed), but it didn't seem right to include them in this fic, even as an epilogue. All that will come in later fic: back to my roots of writing schmoopy happy fluff ;) The series is called Immortal Men if you want to subscribe to it.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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